By Jean Boulton.
What is a useful way to clarify the underpinning ontological ground of complexity? What can we learn from the work of Edgar Morin (2006), who distinguishes between those working within the frames of restricted and general complexity? And how are these frames relevant to practice?
Morin makes a distinction between:
- a framing of complexity that sits within the ontology of classical science, which he calls ‘restricted complexity’
- the ‘general complexity’ of the ‘real world,’ where general complexity is more paradoxical, more integrating, more challenging, ambiguous and uncertain – but also ripe with potential.
Restricted complexity emanates from the world of models, maps and mathematics. The aim is to find ways to represent the complexity of the real world, by finding a good map.
General complexity, by contrast, starts further back into the primordial mud, and champions the attainment of knowledge through wandering the ‘territory’. It is complexity that is beyond (or before) mathematics and cannot be entirely captured by models, flowcharts or causal loop diagrams. It is messier and more concerned with engaging with the rich nature of the terrain than a representation of that terrain. General complexity often starts with experiment and observation – of forests, cells, swirls in chemical systems, galaxies, social groups or societies – rather than with conceptual abstractions.
Both approaches to complexity are designed to help us determine how to act and live in the complex world; both see a role for models and maps, but they are situated within distinct ontologies.
The underlying ontologies
Restricted complexity is based on classical science which searches for “the hidden order that is the authentic reality of the universe” (Morin, 2006, 6). The models and mathematics required to achieve this are far from simple, but there is an underlying assumption of order to be uncovered and of stability rather than instability. The implication is that, with clever mathematics and computational techniques, we can represent and understand ‘real-life’ pretty well.
Those embracing the fullness of general complexity point out that with restricted complexity, “one still remains within the frameworks of classical science” (Morin, 2006:10) and that the approaches “remain in important respects merely reductionist” (Byrne and Callaghan 2014: 2). For example, mathematical models generally need to define boundaries, cannot easily handle paradox and must severely restrict the diversity and ability to learn when representing human actors. They are helpful in exploring ‘the now’ and less able to handle an emerging future (Boulton 2024: 129).
In contrast, general complexity aims to focus on the real-life situation itself, rather than a simplified representation of it. It is based on recognition that, for patterns to emerge, situations need to be open to their wider surroundings, and there must exist a level of diversity and variation amongst the constituents. There is also an irreducible, entwined inter-relationship between the micro and the macro. There is a degree of order or form, but it never entirely stabilises, and there is always a degree of disorder. Situations are inherently paradoxical, not entirely definable, and liable to change over time.
This paradoxical, elusive dance – between order and disorder, between stability and chaos, between form and formlessness, between certainty and uncertainty – is the stuff of general complexity. There is always an irreconcilable, intrinsic tension that must be embraced. There is no assumption that there is an objective ‘order behind appearances’. Features that are paradoxical, subjective, sometimes emerging and sometimes stabilising cannot be reduced to objective and definable parameters and dimensions, as in classical science. Moreover, this ‘messiness’, a messiness that cannot be captured by analytical means, is both inevitable and a largely positive quality of the world. Indeed, it is the source of novelty, emergence, resilience and change.
Relevance to practice
In practice, both ontologies have value. And the truth is that, even if we try, we can never work with all the information that is there, so in some sense or another we are always making choices about what to include and what to ignore, whether computational models are involved or not. If we were to try to know everything before we decide anything, it would take us all our time, and the situation, in the meantime, would have been changed by the process of looking!
Sometimes we like our complexity to be general, and sometimes we know it has to have a degree of restriction, depending on the context and our aims. We all adopt some form of framing, some form of modelling, if only through the way we talk about something. We all ‘abstract’ to a degree and go beyond merely immersing ourselves in the world’s complexities.
Without an ability to abstract and consider the implications of a complex world, we would struggle to make sense, make decisions and take action. But we need to take care to not become blind to our simplifying assumptions and wedded to our preferred methods. We should continue to remain alert to what is missing and what is shifting and keep an eye on the skittishness and ‘wilfulness’ of the territory, and its ability to confound us.
Closing questions
Does this resonate with how you think about complexity and tackle it in practice? Are there other ontologies or practices that you think are useful for understanding and dealing with complexity?
To find out more:
Boulton, J. (2024). The dao of complexity: Making sense and making waves in turbulent times. De Gruyter: Berlin, Germany. See especially Chapter 31 “The raw and the cooked of complexity,” which contains additional ideas and references.
Embracing complexity—Jean Boulton’s website. (Online): https://www.embracingcomplexity.com/.
References:
Byrne, D. and Callaghan, G. (2014) Complexity theory and the social sciences: The state of the art. 1st edition. Routledge: Milton Park, Oxfordshire, United Kingdom.
Morin, E. (2006). Restricted complexity, general complexity. In, C. Gershenson, D. Aerts and B. Edmonds. (eds.), Worldviews, science and us: Philosophy and complexity, World Scientific: Singapore.
Use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) Statement: Artificial intelligence was not used in the development of this i2Insights contribution or the work on which the contribution is based. (For i2Insights policy on artificial intelligence please see https://i2insights.org/contributing-to-i2insights/guidelines-for-authors/#artificial-intelligence.)
Biography: Jean Boulton PhD is a Fellow of the Institute of Physics and a visiting academic with the Universities of Cranfield and Bath, in the United Kingdom. She has been deeply involved in the science and philosophy of complexity since the mid-1990s and the honing of these ideas continues to inform her research, consultancy work and personal practice.
This is great. Thank you, Jean.
In my experience of nurturing conditions for learning together, the ability of people, including me, to perceive and hold complexity feels intimately connected with the patterns and nature of communication and relationships that develop.
The central hypothesis of Iain McGilchrist’s work is that we have two ways of attending, associated with the right and left hemispheres of our brains, the former of which is experiential and the latter representational. This feels to me to be aligned with Morin’s distinction, as you describe it, between general and restricted complexity, respectively.
One thing that strikes me as transformative in McGilchrist’s worldview is that, although we can see the world only partially, our experiential manner of knowing enables us to “see the world directly. It is not a re-presentation, but a real presence: there is not a wall between us and the world.” (McGilchrist, The Matter with Things, p11)
Let’s assume that the alignment between Morin’s and McGilchrist’s distinctions holds up to scrutiny (it might not!) Then I wonder whether experience as a process of relational encounter (via our right hemispheric manner of attention), which McGilchrist considers to be direct experience of reality itself, is a different ontology from Morin’s “focus on the real-life situation itself”?
I guess that is a question back to you, if it is of interest.
Thanks Roger, a great link. I write about this in my recent book, The Dao of Complexity (2024:193-198). Good spot. The connection I think is that if the world complex (in the sense expressed by general complexity – systemic, patterned, always adjusting and becoming, emergent, paradoxical, contextual) – the ontology – then the right brain is best attuned for knowing about that world. As you say, depending on the issue, direct experience – relational encounter is how best to know the immediate – like what is happening in this group, or for me engaging with my community. When we are talking about bigger pictures things – like what are the patterns in an organisational culture, or how might the future of a region develop, or what led to the conditions that manifest in a particular part of the world, then we might include other methods of inquiry – narrative based, drawing on others experience and stories – qualitative and subjective methods of knowing. And, having apprehended the world with the right brain, the left brain can drill down into detail, check hypotheses, make plans. Does that resonate?
Beautiful!
So important to remember that “this ‘messiness’, a messiness that cannot be captured by analytical means, is both inevitable and a largely positive quality of the world. Indeed, it is the “source of novelty, emergence, resilience and change” as we struggle to find meaning in the world.
thank you. Glad you find it helpful!
Thanks Jean for such a clear and fascinating description of types of complexity. It reminds me of the difference between the Kantian argument that knowledge is derived from abstract principles (models) and the view of Goethe and Humboldt that ‘wandering’ in the world (noticing, drawing and writing) is how we learn to understand it. Dalia Nassar’s recent book ‘Romantic Empiricism’ is a beautiful exposition of this contrast between the application of principles that model our world, and the immersive attentiveness to actual phenomena that enables us to see complexity, connectedness and emergence.
Thanks Jane. Goethe had a great influence on Brian Goodwin, one of the complexity biologists who I respect and I explore this connection in my book ‘the dao of complexity’ (2024:171). Goethe talks of discerning ‘meaningful wholes or patterns’. To quote myself (!) ‘one example of holistic appreciation is listening to a piece of music. On one level music is just a series of notes; it is our sensory experience of those notes which turns it into music – music that has an integrity, form and meaning’. Goethe also focused on how we can see the glimmerings of new beginnings through watching and accompanying things as they are in the process of emerging and becoming. Juliana Schneider wrote a lovely paper on this. I also like that image you mention of wandering – being open to notice both the relatively established patternings and the ‘beginning of the beginnings’ .. I havent heard of Dalia Nassar’s book but I will find it! Thank you!
And I look forward to reading ‘The dao of complexity’! Thanks Jean!
Thank you for sharing this, Jean.
Your final paragraph particularly resonates with me. I think it is impossible for one person or discipline to grasp and hold the whole general complexity of most situations. However, if we can bring a variety of ‘retricted’ perspectives into (productive and timely) dialogue, we can start mapping where coherence is strong and where perspectives conflict.
I am curious for your thoughts on this. Do you think it is possible to ‘build up’ to(wards) general complexity from a variety of restricted lenses?
What a wonderful article! As you note, we can’t access the territory directly, hence why we make maps. There will always be that fundamental gap between the thing, and the rendering of the thing. In science, we’re taught to notice and then close gaps using research experiments. But this gap you’re laying out is irreconcilable. So what are we to do? Turn to poetry I suppose
Hi Allison, thanks! I am a scientist too. But not just turn to poetry (although myth and story have their role in both surfacing and expressing that which is beyond the objective), but turn to approaches of ‘critical subjectivity’ – multiple perspectives grappling together to surface what is there and what is changing, inclusion of the use of intuition as well as classical reason. Brian Goodwin (complexity biologist) speaks of how an experienced medical practitioner assesses health – through hard data but also through engaging with the patient, a felt sense of health or disease. I wrote in the dao of complexity (2024:225) about my dentist. He said that training in dentristry under-emphasises training people to use judgement, to decide what to do when the patient doesn’t fit the norm he or she has been taught to expect. These relational reflexive aspects of dentistry are learned through experience. I wonder too if many creative scientists start with hunches and intuitions rather than with hard data. And experiments can close the gaps it is true, but the living shifting adapting ecologies of the social and natural world go beyond that sort of objective knowing as the situations themselves include paradox at the core. Ways of knowing in a complex world reframe what science is, I think 🙂
You’ve given me a lot to think about, thank you for such a thoughtful reply Jean! I just ordered your book and I look forward to reading it, thanks again for sharing your work
Hi Thomas, thanks for your reply. The issue I think resides not merely in the difficulties of knowing, but in the idea of ontological indeterminism – the idea that there is no objective thing to be known. When the situation we are looking at is relatively stable, then multiple perspectives can, as you say, home in on the relatively stable patterns of relationships and behaviours. But, as Morin (and Prigogine) say, if we are looking at living, changing, adapting, sometimes collapsing social and natural world, then it is the weaving at the micro level of many factors that both causes situations to stabilise and to unravel. A previous blog I wrote shared on i2insights emphasises that complex situations are open to the wider context – when we are looking at and for change and emergence, then the weaving together of many disparate factors, the triggering by variations is central to what happens. So I think, as you say, in stable situations, many restricted lenses can provide some illumination, but it will struggle to explore the dynamic, nuanced, subtle shifts that both create stability and change. I argue that to embrace general complexity is to grapple with nuance, paradox, subjectivity and emergence and requires ways of knowing that include narrative, intuition, participation and embodiment. To quote Morin: “otherwise you lose the capacity to understand anything that actually matters: the climate, the mind, the society, the self, the living systems on which everything depends”. Thank you for your comments and hope this helps to unpick ‘general complexity’ a little more.
This is beautifully written, Jean. Thanks for it.
🙂 thank you. This is an excerpt from a longer piece on the same subject in my book the Dao of Complexity. Also more stuff on my website embracingcomplexity dot com, if that is useful 🙂